What began as a simple journey has turned into so much more...

Session 44a: The Dark Pyramid, Part 1

NOTE: This was a smaller session with just Micah/Nikolai, Valarie/Akara, & Jota/Blackhand. NOTE: This series of adventures is partially/loosely based on the published adventure H3: Pyramid of Shadows (though many liberties have been taken).

After getting shot up out of the ground by the River Archfey, the party saw that they were behind the Mekhet army that their allies (Bane-ites & witches & Pelorians) were moving to intercept. They saw a large black pyramid (about 10 ft high by 10 ft wide) being ritualistically moved with magic by several mummy priests. They also determined that the energy being used to animate the corpses of most of the Mekhet army was coming from the pyramid, which was actually a modified-shape portal that was drawing the power from somewhere else.

Rushing at the pyramid (while attacking a few mummies along the way), the party jumped through the portal… and ended up in different places.

Akara, Nikolai, & Blackhand ended up in a room with smokey-black tiles. However, the others were in a room of smokey white tiles, and Blackhand was paradoxically in BOTH rooms somehow. Eventually realizing that they’d have to seek out a way to reunite with one another, the Akara/Nikolai/Blackhand group started exploring.

First, they found an obsidian orb encased in an intricate gold & silver latticework cage. They determined that the orb had an intelligence trapped inside it… which appeared as a severed female eladrin head who said her name was Vyrellis. Nikolai remembered hearing a store (on the Bard’s Tale page) about the Black Pyramid and Vyrellis’ former lover, a tiefling wizard named Karavakos who had tricked the Lords of the Nine Hells into contracts where they’d have to work against one another. They had constructed the Black Pyramid as a prison to contain this tiefling, and over the centuries had also put others they wished to torture/hold eternally in there as well.

After freeing the orb of Vyrellis, they learned that she had been fractured, and that if they could recover all the pieces of her, that she could help them escape the pyramid. Currently the orb contained a portion of her Intellect & memories, but little else. She let the party know that the pyramid was split across two dimensions, and that some of her parts were in the other dimension (where the other half of the party is). However, she said there was a rare opportunity, because the pyramid was built with the souls of an ancient people who believed cats to be their gods, so Blackhand, with Mr. Danforth, had been allowed to enter both sides by the souls who made up the fabric of the pyramid (and thus explaining why Jota will be at both games).

Seeking another piece of Vyrellis, the party went down, eventually ending in a swampy area where a group of elves were being forced to watch the corruption & destruction of Nature. The three fought an elder Otyugh, and eventually convinced the elves (whom Nikolai identified as the anti-Erathis, terrorist nature group “The Eternal Thorns”) that it was their own rage & spite that was holding them prisoner. When that was released, the ghostly image of one of the slaves used to create the pyramid appeared with a small box. When Blackhand opened it, Vyrellis was made more complete, as her anger and more memories of what had happened between her and Karavakos. She asked Blackhand to take her orb, and suddenly he found himself in the smokey-white room with the others. Meanwhile, Nikolai & Akara were left behind in the nature room, discussing things with their new terrorist allies(?), the Eternal Thorns.